NON-POINT SOURCE
POLLUTION

HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE

PICK IT UP COLUMBUS
IT'S YOUR DOODIE!

RIVERS ALIVE

▪  City-Wide Clean-Up - occurring every April, this event coincides with the larger Great American Clean-Up campaign.

Project Creek Walk - every fall, Storm Water Management staff walk over 50 miles of Muscogee county’s creeks, streams, and lakes looking for illicit connections to the Municipal Storm Sewer System (MS4), illegal dumping, and flow obstructions (i.e., fallen trees).

Field Screening Analysis – Storm Water Management Division staff routinely collect samples from various locations within our MS4 and test them for several common pollutants.  If pollutants are found at appreciable levels, attempts are made to identify the source(s) of the pollution and eliminate them if possible.  The common parameters we test for include: 

GPS Mapping Program – Water Quality Conditions are a vital component of the storm sewer structure attribute data we collect as part of the larger Storm Sewer System Mapping Project.  Standing or flowing water within any storm sewer structure is examined for the following:

Using GPS technology and traditional surveying techniques, we are able to collect both position and attribute data regarding our Storm Sewer System structures (pipes, inlets, junction boxes, etc.).  Combining this information in an ESRI ArcView environment, we are in the process of constructing a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) database.  As the City of Columbus has approximately 20,000+ inlet structures within its Storm Sewer System covering approximately 216 square miles, we anticipate this Project to take between five to eight years to complete.

In Muscogee County, eighty-two industrial facilities have applied for coverage under Georgia EPD’s General Storm Water Permit GAR000000 (Storm Water Associated with Industrial Activities).  The City of Columbus is required to conduct annual and spot inspections of these facilities to ensure that the facilities do not contribute pollutants to the Storm Sewer System and maintain compliance with their permit by performing tasks associated with their Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWP3).  Required tasks may include any combination of the following:

Six Engineering Inspectors provide technical experience in the inspection of construction sites within the public/government sectors. They serve as the primary enforcement officers to ensure contractors comply with the local ordinances pertaining to soil erosion/water quality, construction methodology and flood plain requirements.